Prosecutors in the case against a former SAC Capital Advisors LP portfolio manager have sought to present previously undisclosed evidence that the ex-employee obtained different confidential information than the insider information described in the indictment.
Daniel Levy, a principal in McKool Smith’s New York office, discusses the potential danger of admitting such "other act" evidence in a recent report in The Wall Street Journal, "Pivotal Pre-Trial Decision Faces Latest SAC Capital Defendant."
“The risk to the defense from evidence of uncharged bad acts is that the jury convicts on the basis of propensity, the view that a defendant did something bad on one occasion and, therefore, must have committed the charged crime,” said Mr. Levy. “That is why defendants fight so hard to keep this evidence out.”
The full article can be found here.